Left 4 Dead AU Review

Gauntlet with zombies and guns. Conversational format!

Patch: Valve's onto a real winner with its latest release, Left 4 Dead. It's been a long time since a cooperative first person shooter has felt so energetic, refreshing and flat-out addictive, even within its limited scope – and my hat is off to the team.

Interestingly, the experience of playing Left 4 Dead, in game terms, has more in common with an afternoon in the dungeons of Gauntlet, pressing back endless waves of fleet-footed enemies fouling four different environments, than with Valve's other multiplayer products to date. You press forwards with three other players, taking down the undead with carefree indifference, competing for kills and keeping each other alive. It's delicious, intense and compelling multiplayer. Cam and I get out hands dirty in this conversational review. Your thoughts, Cam?

Cam: Oh man, Left 4 Dead is a heart attack. That's the only way I can describe it. This is some seriously intense action. The comparison to Gauntlet is spot-on, Patch – this is Gauntlet for a New Generation. In an oblique way it also reminds me of Doom and Doom II. Because those game utilised sprite-based enemies, id was able to throw huge numbers of them at us at once. That changed when gaming went 3D, and I really missed that intensity. Left 4 Dead brings it back. You're literally swamped by zombies in this game, and not in a Dead Rising 'you can run through them if you want' way. These zombies are fast and angry. Oh so angry. And they come right at you.

You'll be walking down an empty corridor, and realise that something has changed – a malevolent susurrus rises in the background, before... AAAARGH! - ten, twenty, thirty zombies are all sprinting down the corridor at you. Like I said, a heart attack. It's even cooler in the open outdoor environments. What was once a spooky, gutted city street, for instance, transforms into an instant battlefield as zombies leap down from the rooftops, climb chain-link fences and burst through doors to come get some sweet, sweet brains. As the game so aptly says: "Here they come..."

We didn't mention it in the text, but the automatic shotgun in this game is AWESOME. You can unload ten shots at a crowd of zombies in a couple of seconds.

Patch: I think the key point of differentiation between this and the multitude of other multiplayer and cooperative games out there is its pace. Even solely in campaign mode with just one other human player, you constantly feel the pressure of flanking zombies in the distance and you really have to stick together and keep moving if you want to survive. The challenge isn't so much in the zombies themselves – individually, they're just meatbag targets waiting to explode. But if you fall off a rooftop into a swarm of 20 – things get interesting. You need to be saved if you're knocked on your ass, meaning, your teammates need to really look out for each other and conserve things like your single spare health pack and health-boosting pill bottles for when they're really needed. I haven't felt this kind of thoughtful cooperative gameplay in a pure arcade shooter before. It's refreshing.

Weapons are your standard selection of single or dual-wield pistols, a semi-automatic, two varieties of shottie, a kick-arse Assault rifle, sniper rifle and, lest we forget, attention-grabbing pipe bombs, molotovs and gasoline canisters. No surprises, but an effective range. Ammunition dumps are thoughtfully allocated for maximum tension and pace; it seems like you'll run out of your primary ammo at just the right time to keep things tense and then, turning a corner, there's a safe house with an ammo cache and a little extra health to keep you going. Too bad that your cohorts' AI is a little unrefined...

Cam: I think they serve their purpose well enough, and the bottom line is that even though this game is still a barrel of fun on your own, it's absolutely at its best with friends. Preferably three of 'em. I'd go so far as to say this is the best co-op experience I've had in gaming to date. It's a personal preference obviously, but I'd absolutely play this over Gears 2 any day. As you mentioned, you really need to be working together (even though you're also competing for victory on the stats screens that follow each chapter), systematically taking down the zombie horde and cluing in each other about where they're coming from.

A second later, the Witch is on top of you, clawing your eyes out.

Valve has made some smart decisions to ensure teamwork is rewarded, as well as to keep the gameplay smooth. For instance, friendly fire is on, so you have to be mindful of where your team members are, but at the same time there's no collision detection with friendlies, so you're not jostling for space in narrow corridors, and you can all go up ladders at the same time. You'll notice that whenever a survivor reloads they call it out – again, this is so you can ensure you're not all reloading at the same time. You'll also want to plan how you utilise the very limited (like health packs you can carry one at a time) pipe bombs and molotovs – used at the right time you can take out twenty plus zombies in a hit, or block off an avenue for them to run at you. Chatting about when to use these weapons is obviously important. And as Patch mentioned, there are enemies that can pin you down or strangle you, and the only way to get out of their clutches is to be rescued by another player.

Working together also has a tangible impact on the actual gameplay. All enemies are spawned procedurally by the game's 'Director AI', so not only does this mean that the same area will never play out the same way twice, it also means the better you are as a team, the more challenging the game will be for you – you'll face more intense Horde waves and encounter more of the specialist infected – Boomers, Hunters, Smokers, Tanks and Witches. These are the guys that add a little extra spice to the Left 4 Dead equation. Want to quickly go through them, Patch?